Aardvarks, Disembark! Book

When Noah called the zebras out of the Ark, he thought it was empty, but he was wrong! There were still many unusual animals aboard—from zerens to aoudads. "Totally unique, innovative, and involving....This tour de force concludes with a list of the 132 species of animals pictured in the book, including a pronunciation of the difficult ones, along with a line of information about each. Those now extinct or endangered are indicated....From any perspective it's a masterpiece."—Horn Book.

Author Biography: Ann Jonas, author-artist of Splash! and Round Trip, lives in Germantown, New York.In Her Own Words...

"I grew up in a family that attached great importance to knowing how to do as many things as possible, from skating to skiing to cabinet-making to repairing the family car. Everyone always had several projects going at the same time, and drawing was considered an incidental skill, a tool for planning a project rather than an end in itself. It was only after a few years of dead-end jobs following high school that I decided some specific training might be helpful, even necessary. I attended Cooper Union and after graduation went to work in the studio of my former graphicdesign instructor.

"A few years later my husband, Donald Crews, was inducted into the Army and subsequently sent to Germany. I followed and found a job with a German advertising agency, trying to design ads with a "Madison Avenue" look for them. We lived in Germany for one-and-a-half years, sharing a rambling apartment with German friends. Our first daughter, Nina, was born there. When we returned to the United States, we started our own freelance design business.

"Our seconddaughter, Amy, was born, and the design business grew. It wasn't until both daughters were nearly ready for college that I considered doing books for children, and then it was only through the urging of my husband and his editor, Susan Hirschman.

"My first book, When You Were a Baby, came together very quickly. I drew strongly on memories of my children and their friends at two and three and their evident pride in their accomplishments. Two Bear Cubs was next and then Round Trip, which was the working out of an idea that had interested me in the abstract. With succeeding books, I've been trying to explore other ways of stretching children's imaginations. I find myself drawn more and more often to designing books that involve some sort of visual play. It seems like a wonderful opportunity to encourage children to look at familiar things in different ways while offering the appeal of a game or a puzzle. If I can also deal, even if only lightly, with some of a child's deeper concerns, then I feel that I've served him or her as well as I can."

After the flood, Noah calls out of the ark a variety of little-known animals, many of which are now endangered.